I was travelling for close to a month and really  missed my regular dose of live music. So, I happily hit three gigs in the  city last week.

Ankur & The Ghalat Family

On  Tuesday night, Ankur and The Ghalat Family played an hour-long set at  Blue Frog. Every time I hear Ankur, I feel like the band has got better,  and I warm a little more to his brand of easy, acoustic-based pop-rock.  My favourite gig of his, so far, is the lovely afternoon set they  played at the Bacardi NH7 Weekender in November last year. That’s how I  think the band works best – in the sunshine, when you can lay back,  relax and hum along. At Blue Frog, Ankur played a bunch of tracks from his debut album  Jannat as well as some new songs including the title track of the next  album Mohobbat Zindabad.

I absolutely *love* this video of his for the  Spanish-influenced track Jaanu, featured on Jannat. Set around the late 50s/early 60s (now better known as the Mad Men era), the attention to the costumes and props is truly delightful.  Watch here.You’ve  gotta hand it to Ankur; he’s one of the few Indian artists I know still making regular music videos. Jannat has three videos – for Chand  Chahiye, Jaanu and most recently Bekhabar.

Medusa

On Wednesday night, I  stepped into my heels again and headed back to Blue Frog for Medusa, an  electro-rock/trip-hop band from Mumbai. I personally think Medusa is  quite underrated, and I’m looking forward to their second album, which  should be out in about three months. They played an hour-and-a-half long set  (with a quick break in between) mixing older tracks like Who’s Your  Daddy with tracks like Sweet Smile Diving and Clone that will feature on  the next album. Raxit Tewari’s lazy, drawling vocals are somewhat of an  anti-thesis to the groovy music. I can’t decide whether I want to  bounce along, or just zone and listen quietly – I think I managed a  combination of both that night.

Bramfatura and Red Ant

There was a new  act to check out, so I headed to Red Ant in Bandra on Friday night. Red  Ant has started doing gigs every Friday so I wanted to go see the space  as well. Heads up, they have a dress code: no shorts and chappals. And  since I went there with three (musician) boys in the summer, they were  all wearing different combinations of both. So, we dropped by Bonobo  for a drink or three, and by the time we got back to Red Ant, we’d  missed about half the set.Red Ant isn’t the best space for a gig. The place is  narrow and long, so you have to be in the first few rows or you won’t  get much of a view of the band. Which seems well enough, because the  rest of the club is celebrating birthdays or doing shots. Still, it’s  nice to have a new venue supporting live music. If they ease up on the  dress code, and give it some time, they’ll have a regular audience for  their Friday night gigs. Props to Bombay Elektrik and Sound Curry (Bombay Elektrik’s new venture for music) for taking the time to develop new venues – they’re the ones behind all the poetry and gig nights at Cafe Goa in Bandra, and are now programming music at Red Ant.

I’m going to reserve my judgment on Bramfatura until I catch a full set. They’ve recently released a music video for  their track Only Just that you can watch here.

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